I'm Dreaming of a post-Hell Christmas
by Obi the Kid
Summary: Cal's first Christmas after returning from Grendel Hell.


**NOTE: I also posted this same story as part of my AFTER series, but figured since it was a Christmas-themed story, that I'd post it as a stand-alone as well.**

**Chapter Title:** I'm Dreaming of a Post-Hell Christmas

**Author**: Obi the Kid

**POV:** Cal

**Rating:** PG

**Summary**: Cal's first Christmas after returning from Grendel Hell.

**Disclaimer**: All hail Rob Thurman! No profit here, I'm just having fun.

* * *

We were five months out from Grendel Hell and settled in Buffalo, New York. Late December. Christmas. And plenty cold. Cal's been cold since he got back and certainly being in a town known for record snowfall each Winter wasn't helping.

Having just returned from a nearby take-out place, I'd only recently gotten comfortable with leaving Cal alone for any length of time. Thankfully, as rancid as this current hotel was, its saving grace was that it had cable television and it kept my brother's mind occupied while I was out getting our meal.

"Cal. Dinner. Come eat."

He glanced towards me, holding a pillow to his chest. "After Lucy."

"You are not seriously watching another _I Love Lucy_ rerun, are you?"

"Marathon."

"Meaning that you've probably seen this episode twice already today. Come and eat, please."

"Not hungry."

"You are hungry and even if you aren't, I don't care. You need to eat."

"Can't."

I pulled the sandwiches out of the bag and set them on the table. "Why can't you eat?"

"Threw up lunch."

I let out a deep, knowing breath. "I know you did and it's all the more reason to eat dinner."

He shook his head and turned back to Lucy.

"Damn it, Cal," I barked as my hand smacked down on the cheap wooden table.

I didn't lose my cool often, especially in these last months, but I did this time. The last few days had been particularly difficult on many levels and even I had my limits. One button pushed too many, I guess. Stress will do that to the best of us.

Walking over to the bed, I grabbed his arm and pulled him – or tried to – off the bed and to the kitchenette. His resistance was impressive for a now sixteen year old weighing about twenty pounds less than he should. That old Cal stubbornness, so prevalent before Hell, had only strengthened in post-Hell.

He yanked his arm away and said a firm, "No!"

I grabbed him again.

This time he yelled it. "NO!"

Cal always enjoyed a good yell, but not generally in my direction. We had to fix this, and now. I couldn't take care of him with a wall between us and I felt one building. I released his arm and sat on my bed, opposite his. Several steadying and resolute breaths later, I found my center – calling on the slew of yoga and kata training I'd been devouring recently - and addressed him again.

"Cal, tell me what's going on."

His reply came with averted eyes. "Same shit, different day. Just leave me alone, Nik."

"Sorry, little brother, can't do that. Talk to me."

"Don't want to."

I frowned a sigh at the position that held me. Stuck. Seriously stuck. I risked pushing him away if I was too aggressive and that was something I could ill afford to do at this stage of the game. If I did nothing, if I let him have his way, that wasn't a conduit for recovery either. Curling into a fetal ball each tiny moment that life turned sideways, wasn't how Cal would become Cal again. Unfortunately there wasn't a self-help book for what to do when your little brother came back from Monster Hell. So, having regained my total composure and control, I talked a bit more – keeping it placid - trying to softly gnaw at the reason for his recession.

"Your dreams last night were more intense. You remembered something."

He shrugged at my statement. And if I knew my brother, that shrug was a yes.

"About the food again?"

Sans the shrug; this time, a shake of the head met my question.

"Punishment?"

Another shake. The pillow pulled tighter to him.

"Cal."

"Cold, okay?" He finally huffed out. "It was cold there."

"You remember more?"

"I remember the cold; just being cold all the time. It's cold here too."

Now we were on to something. Yesterday, we were several states south, and along with it, twenty degrees warmer. He'd been better during that time. Well, better being an operative term for his current state of mind. Today, the colder northeast and he'd changed; obscured memories being forced to the surface.

"It's cold here, Nik," he repeated again.

"We're in Buffalo. It's December, almost Christmas. We could go south again, but it's probably better if you deal with this rather than hide from it."

"Tired of moving. And I'm _not_ hiding."

He wasn't really, and he'd called me on it, for which I was glad to see a spark of fight in his muddled mind.

"No, I'm sorry, Cal. You're not hiding. You're just struggling with confused emotions and memories."

The pillow was clenched to his chest again when he finally looked at me. "Sorry for yelling."

"It's okay."

"No. Shouldn't yell at you. Never at you."

I pursed my lips and sat quietly for a long moment, deciding which way to go. What was best for my brother wasn't necessarily what he needed. Heading south again would help him, but we couldn't avoid cold weather for the rest of our lives, not with evil incarnate on our tail.

So, here I was. Stuck. Again.

Not knowing what else to do, I stayed silent. Briefly, as the quiet blanketed the room, I became lost in the black and white characters on the small TV screen. When the quiet was finally broken, it was Cal who did the breaking. This time, those steel gray eyes met my own.

"Nik?"

"Yes?"

"I'll eat. You do everything for me, the least I can do is eat."

"I just want you to be okay, little brother. You're still too thin."

"M'not okay."

"No, not yet, but you'll get there."

Finally, he released the pillow and the TV remote. After he got up, legs moving slowly from recent disuse, I pulled the blanket off my bed and wrapped it around him as he sat at the table. His shaking hands tugged it snug.

"S'better. Thanks."

I gave him one of my rare smiles and set his sandwich in front of him. "Burger. Extra cheese and lard. Just how you like it." The briefest hint of a grin peered back at me as he took a bite, then another.

I understood now. It was the cold that was triggering the recent change. This unsullied winter air we'd entered into had struck him so sharply that it upset the frantic balance he'd found in recent weeks. Small flashes of a

cold, evil hell had risen up enough to cause the nausea and the downturn in mood. Intense anxiety triggers the stomach to flip over and out came an undigested lunch.

Triggers were funny things, especially when it came to emotional and physical traumas.

He ate the entire burger and half of the fries, also downing his coke in the process. Disgusting and toxic, but good nevertheless. I was pleased. He even seemed a bit brighter afterwards.

"Good burger. We should eat there again."

"The veggie burger leaves a lot to be desired."

"That's because it's a _veggie_ burger."

I smiled again, two times in less than two minutes. Probably a new record for me. He'd earned it though. _That_ had been a Cal remark if I'd ever heard one. And I've heard plenty. He'd surprised me. And if you knew me, that wasn't an easy task to accomplish.

He surprised me again with his next comment.

"We should get a Christmas tree."

"We should, what?"

"A tree, like when we were kids."

"Cal, those things we had at Christmas were not trees. I cut pieces off the neighbor's bushes, tied them together and stuck them in a wooden bucket. Then you hung your old empty cookie wrappers as ornaments, which of course finally explained why you ever refused to throw them away.

The words easily brought those particular memories back. We'd had so few good memories as kids that I'd always made a point to hang onto the ones that had actually meant something. Sofia was always gone on Christmas. Off selling herself or drinking herself under a bus. It was just Cal and I on Christmas Eve and morning. I made sure I always had gifts for him. They were cheap dollar store or yard sale things, but it was all I could do. I had to do it. He was a kid. Kids deserve Christmas.

"Please, Nik."

"Okay," I relented. "You want a tree or you want me to go cut up some bushes?"

"Just like when we were kids."

"Bushes it is then. I'll figure it out tomorrow. How's your stomach?"

He rubbed at it through the blanket. "S'good."

I flipped the subject back, trying to take advantage of his upturn in mood since eating.

"You remember anything other than the cold?"

"Just flashes I don't understand. Don't want to. Maybe I'll never remember."

I could only hope we'd be so lucky. "Maybe so. You want to try sleeping on _top_ of the bed tonight?"

The hollow look told me all it needed to. "Sorry. I had to ask."

Two days later, Christmas Eve, and I set a small pile of shrub pieces into an old beat up wooden bucket. A dollar store string of colored lights finished the deed, along with a couple of empty snack wrappers – doubling as ornaments - from the vending machine outside. Once Cal was asleep, I'd sneak his gift out and set it next to the bucket. Tradition would stay alive. Not once in my life had I forgotten my brother on Christmas, no matter our situation. There would always be a gift under the tree – or next to the bucket.

I got on my knees and lowered to my stomach to stick my head under Cal's bed. He was tucked in, but not sleeping, as there was a pillow clutched in one hand, combat knife in the other. From his position, he could look right out the other side and see the makeshift tree sitting next to the TV stand.

"How'd I do, little brother?"

No words followed, but he took his pillow-gripped hand and reached it out to me. I held it hard for a short minute before letting go.

"See you in the morning."

There I went being hopeful again; hopeful that he'd sleep through the night. He wouldn't. And that was our reality now; a reality that may never change, no matter my best efforts to the contrary. Those best efforts had me crawling under the bed when Cal's nightmares decided that this Christmas Eve would not be a placid one.

Christmas morning and my shoulders and back ached. Even the most physically fit body was not designed to sleep on a hard carpet floor under a contemptible hotel bed. The smells alone were enough to bring pain. I kept still though, despite the discomfort. Cal had finally found quiet about 3AM. Now, almost four hours later, his back remained still against mine. I'd suffer the physical uneasiness as long as needed for my brother.

That suffering though didn't last too much longer. Another twenty minutes and I felt his shoulder nudge back against my own.

"Nik?"

"Right here."

"Our tree fell over. And the lights went out. And the ornaments fell off."

"Cheap lights. I suppose it was asking a lot of them to stay lit for a full twenty-four hours."

"That's our luck."

"So it is. Merry Christmas, Cal."

"We made it to another one, huh? My first post-Hell Christmas."

"If it means you're alive, I'll accept it. Get up. You have to open your present."

We slid from under the bed frame. I stretched long and hard; my body grateful to be vertical. Cal eyed the newspaper-wrapped box sitting next to the tipped bucket. Surprisingly, he didn't pick up the gift immediately as he would of in the past. Instead, he lifted the bucket and set it back into position, situating the branches for stability and replacing the snack wrapper ornaments. The lights however, showed no sign of resurgence. A dollar didn't buy much in the way of quality these days.

Now, box in hand, Cal sat on the edge of my bed, running a finger along the frayed perimeter of the newspaper. The motion stopped long enough for him to look over at me, standing several feet away.

"More proof that the whole Santa thing is just a flap of lies, huh?"

"Cal, you stopped believing in Santa a long time ago."

"Because every Christmas morning…a box for Cal. No box for Niko. You used to be a kid, Nik. All kids deserve Christmas." I smiled briefly, having thought the same exact thing not long ago. Cal continued. "You – _especially_ you - deserved Christmas."

I shrugged. "I'll live. Open the box." He pulled out the knife. "It's a Cold Steel Double Agent I Karambit, 3 inch plain blade with the grivory grip. It's in the category of what's called a Neck Knife. Easy to conceal under a shirt or jacket. Less obvious for those certain _discreet_ situations. You'll get the lesson soon enough." The last few words I'd finished as I took a spot next to him on the bed. Cal suddenly had a childlike look of sadness come across his haunted sixteen year old face. The knife set horizontally in his lap. His shoulders fell as I draped an arm around them.

"You don't like it?"

"I love it. It's just…our lives, Nik. Deadly weapons for Christmas. A bucket of bush branches with candy bar wrappers and dollar store lights as a tree. Sleeping under hotel beds. Who lives like this?"

"We do, and if it keeps you alive, it's what we'll continue to do."

"That's a strange definition of living you have, Nik. And you still don't get Christmas presents."

"You're alive, Cal. It's all I ask for."

"That's very soap opera-y of you, big brother, but one day, you'll get that present and it'll be under an actual tree wrapped in actual wrapping paper with lights that stay on for more than a day and ornaments made of something more than cellophane."

"That's a long sentence for you, little brother."

"I mean it."

I patted his shoulder and tugged him close. "I know you do. Until then, how about we celebrate Christmas with breakfast? Pancakes; smothered in all things sugar and lard. How about a trip _inside_ the local diner?"

It was a shot. Cal still wasn't much for being in public places, but he'd been working hard recently on combating that fear. I wasn't surprised that he said yes. Christmas morning, the local diner would be a quiet and warm place to spend an hour or three.

"Good. Go clean up. A shower would be a fine idea too. You smell like hotel carpet."

Standing and shivering slightly, he pulled a clean change of clothes from his duffel and moved to the bathroom; physical presence echoing his general mood of blah. "Use hot water, Cal. It'll chase away the cold for a while."

In the doorway of the bathroom, he stopped and turned; first eying the bush-bucket tree before turning his identical gray eyes to mine. Eyes that held a haunting only Cal could know; but that also allowed him to see that he wasn't in this hell alone. And he never would be.

"Go on, Cal. I'll be right out here."

"Yeah," he replied with a tinge of relief in his voice. He followed it quickly with a, "Merry Christmas, Nik."

I smiled. "Merry Christmas, little brother."

Finally he disappeared into the bathroom, only to poke his head back out again. "You promise about the pancakes?"

"Have I ever lied to you?"

There was a small, but firm shake of his head. "Not once. Not ever."

"Count on that, Cal."

"I do, Nik. I always do."

The pancakes were of the stomach rotting variety, but it was the most agreeable meal Cal had engaged in since he'd returned. He battled his demons the entire time we were in the diner, but he managed.

Another Christmas morning had come and gone. Not one of them had ever been traditional in the way that most families know. None of them had ever been filled with joy or wonder – the both of us had been robbed of those emotions the moment upon entering this world. In the end, it didn't matter. We couldn't miss what we'd never had. The only constant we'd ever had on Christmas – and on every other day of our lives - was each other.

To be honest, it's the only thing we'd really ever needed.

* * *

The End


End file.
